Chapter 59
EVER
He’s gone,” I whisper.
Eli crawls to me, stronger and faster with each movement closer as he recovers. His curls swish perfectly over his forehead, though the rest of him is smeared in red and black blood. He reaches for me, stopping short at the sight of my leg, the way my arm hangs from the socket. “Ah fuck.”
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Missed you too, asshole.”
“Look at you.” He brushes his thumb over the bruises Kelter left. “A total fucking mess, just how I like you.”
The start of a painful laugh breaks free with the tease in my tone. “You like me?”
“You’re not fully lucid. You have a bone sticking out of your leg.”
I’m lucid enough to know he walled off my heart as soon as it opened up, but that doesn’t hide his actions. “You died for me again.”
Without warning, Eli rips a larger hole in my pants.
The movement is decimating, pain wrenching a scream from my throat.
Then I’m quiet as he pushes the fabric out of the way, letting his fingers slip through the blood dripping down my leg.
His voice calms the agony. “I’ll die as many fake deaths as it takes to keep you alive. ”
And I believe him.
“I’m going to set the bone now,” he says, licking his fingers clean.
Even that sight doesn’t ease my surge of panic. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“No.” He yanks my leg down then forces the bone back into place with an audible grind.
My shriek echoes in my mind. Panting and delirious with pain, I watch him pull one pair of my underwear after another from his pocket. Then tie them together. And finally he wraps them around my leg and tightens them into knots.
“I think you broke it all over again,” I say.
“Eli, hurry! I can’t stop it,” Kaleida shouts from where she kneels, peeking her head over Zandrite’s bed.
“Stop what?” he yells.
“The bleeding,” she cries. “It’s Milo.”
Eli is on his feet in an instant, then pauses, looking down at me with heavy eyes. “You’re hurt too.”
“Go to him,” I urge. But the second he turns his back, I try to follow, only to be stopped by the pain in my leg, excruciating, even with the slight reduction from the roots.
“Damn broken bone.” I punch the marble floor then nurse my freshly split knuckles and curse as Kelter leaves his father’s body to come to me.
“I’ll drag you,” he offers.
“You killed your father.” I look up at my friend, my link, trying to sort him out. “I thought you didn’t want him dead.”
“I didn’t know what I wanted.” He tucks an arm under my uninjured side and shuffles backward.
I groan the whole way over to Eli, wrecked by the way my body screams to be fixed. But the closer I get, the more it hurts—in my heart.
Milo’s head rolls back and forth on the wall, his blonde hair bright against the black marble.
But it’s not the crater in his stomach that I can’t handle.
It’s the continuous moan of defeat rising from his chest. His face is slack, his expression soft, blue eyes wide and full of wonder despite the blood spluttering from his mouth with each grueling breath.
Atom is at his side, bloody and listless, the shock evident with the way he labors to hold up his head. Confusion builds on his face as he looks around. “It’s not too late to stop it,” he slurs. “Not yet.”
I hold his cheek. “Atom, it’s me. It’s okay now.”
“No, it’s just about to start.”
Eli’s hands are fixed over Milo’s stomach in a desperate attempt to keep the blood from flowing. “We need to close him up!”
Kaleida holds her face in panic, smearing dark red over her cheeks. “He didn’t have any more of the tincture at his house.”
“Then anything! Give me something to stop the bleeding!” He grabs Milo’s ripped shirt and stuffs it into the gaping hole in his abdomen.
Milo groans, his usually vibrant eyes shifting to shadowed and weary, the blue now a dull gray.
Kaleida slaps Eli’s hand. “That’s not sanitary!”
I grab his wrist when he tries to cover the wound again. “Eli. Talk to him.”
He could free himself from my grasp, but makes a fist instead, shaking. “Why would I talk instead of saving his life?” He sends a bloody hand through his hair, streaking his curls red.
Kaleida grabs Kelter’s leg to get his attention. “Stop standing here doing nothing. Go extract Zandrite’s essence before his death stone forms and we can’t get it out. I don’t know how long we have.”
My eyes travel over Milo, the messy wound on his belly, the blood and torn skin, the bits of organ showing, and worst of all—the clear resignation on his face.
He’s tired of fighting each breath. I dare a hand on Eli’s shoulder, and when he only flinches, I rub my fingertips over his tense muscles, choosing my words with care and trying to remain steady through the pain all over. “Maybe he needs a distraction.”
His jaw twitches, drawing my attention away from the bulging vein in his forehead. Shallow breaths claim his body. He turns his head slowly, his dark eyes reaching mine, a threat in them that if this moment continues as it is, he will fall apart. “He needs to live.”
Atom snuggles in next to Milo, picking up his long, slender arm and draping it over his small shoulders. He pats Milo’s chest. “I’m sorry I failed.”
“You didn’t do this.” I poke his foot to get him to look at me.
His face crumples. “I didn’t stop it.” He draws his knees into his chest and curls over them.
“Hurry up, Kelter!” Kaleida yells, then drops her voice to a mutter. “How hard is it to rip out a dead man’s heart?”
“That was his father. Give him a second,” I say. One look at Kelter and I know he’s struggling, his heart heavy with guilt. He hangs his head, crouching with one hand on his father’s chest.
Eli closes his eyes, collecting patience he’s already used up, and opens them again in a flash of dark brown. “I need the essence. I can’t wait anymore.”
“It’ll be yours soon.” Kaleida rests a soothing hand on his knee.
“I don’t want it.” Eli presses a fist to his temple, controlling breath after breath.
“What?” I ask. It comes out like a puff of air, soft and quiet.
His eyes travel sideways, his forehead creased in anguish. “I’m giving it to Milo.”
“We don’t even know if that will save him,” Kaleida hisses, as if Milo weren’t a foot away from her.
Eli swallows tightly. “I don’t care.”
I grip his arm and whisper, “And the voices in your head?”
“They stay.” I can’t hear anything else but Eli, not while the room spins and the walls waver, not with the way he grabs my face and forces me to look at him.
And words fall from his lips so smoothly it’s as if they’d always been there, waiting.
“Every version of me is in love with you. That’s all that matters right now. ”
Love. My body goes numb, my heart the only part still functional, but even now I feel the grip he has on it, preventing my true reaction.
“We’ll find a way.” I touch his face, those perfect cheek bones, but he pulls away.
“Where the fuck is his essence?” Eli yells, flipping around. “Cut open his heart and get on with it!”
I turn toward Kelter, my mind sliding image after image into place, trying to comprehend the sight before me.
Zandrite is no more than a mound of flesh at his side, lucky to still have bones and blood. Kelter holds a glowing light with a liquid center, about the size of a fist and shaped like a figure eight, twisting and twirling. Zandrite’s essence.
And the color. It’s that of my eyes. I stare, mesmerized by its movements, the familiar indigo, the energy pulsing through the room. Kelter captures the light in his hands and shoves it against his chest. His hands smash flat. His head and shoulders jerk back.
The light spreads under his skin, his body absorbing the essence.
His chest illuminates, his impression dark and vivid on the light backdrop.
The circles rearrange, unlinking and relinking over and over until the image is new.
Until a jagged heart made of broken pieces sits on his chest. My own impression tingles and tugs in every direction inside my shirt, rearranging to match his.
Relief floods his eyes, but it’s impossible not to see the confliction etched across his forehead and an immeasurable anguish that parallels Eli’s.
Only seconds pass before Zandrite’s body poofs into dust. It hangs in the air, black and gold particles swirling about, then draws together. The particles fuse, building on one another in dense layers until all that’s left is a black stone. It drops to the ground.